Housebroken, well-trained, animal lover Susan Miers Smith seeks enlightened readers to share the funny, trying and perplexing experiences of life shared with animals. The occasional caustic rant on abuse and human stupidity is also a feature not to be missed.

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Reagle the bat gets his freedom

Stephanie Stronsick, founder of the Pennsylvania Bat Rescue, releases a big brown bat at the Trexler Nature Preserve in North Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, Pa., on August 4, 2016. The blur at top left is the bat. Photo by Susan E. Miers Smith.

A week ago I had the pleasure of seeing three big brown bats get their freedom after being rehabilitated by the folks at the Pennsylvania Bat Rescue. Among them was Reagle, the bat that I called the rescue about back in February.

A yearling brown bat that must have been rousted from his roost and made a near fatal mistake of clinging to the exterior wall of Chiarelli Plaza parking garage in Reading, Pa., in February 2016. Photo by Susan E. Miers Smith.

The poor little guy was clinging to the exterior wall of the Chiarelli Plaza, where I park my car for work in Reading. I knew it was odd for a bat to be out and was sure the crazy weather we were having played a part. The temperature crept up to the mid 50s that week and on the third day I saw the little fur ball, with the forecast of freezing weather, I decided I needed to find a way to help the critter.

That is when I became aware of the PA Bat Rescue and met its very dedicated founder, Stephanie Stronsick. She was the one that came to the bat’s rescue that blustery day. Here’s a video of her in action. Stronsick is a zoo keeper at the Lehigh Valley Zoo and started the rescue in 2012. Here’s a link to the story the Reading Eagle did about the rescue. My co-worker Susan Angstadt got some great photos to go with the story.

Stronsick named the bat Reagle in honor of the newspaper and he spent the next six months in her care. I wondered why it took so long for him to recuperate.

“He was found in the winter,” Stronsick said. “This winter has been very unusual, we had several really cold nights and then it would get really hot and then really cold. And that disrupted a lot of hibernating bats. So he was probably hunting during the warmer nights and then it got too cold and he was stranded. He was emaciated, dehydrated.”

The little guy had some company on his road to recovery.

“I over-wintered him with four other big brown bats,” she said. “We pair up bats that would be most likely released about the same time. The ones that have been in captivity over-wintering for the past quite a few months, we want to try and get out sooner than the new ones. If the new ones come in and there’s really nothing wrong, then we get them out in a few days, but I really want to get the over-wintered bats out. It took a bit.”

She also built indoor flight cages for the rescue, which she operates out of her home in northern Berks County. That equipment is key in helping her decide when to release her charges.

“I go in with a dim light in the middle of the night, usually after I’m done with feeding, give them a few hours to figure everything out and I see who is flying really well. And sometimes in the morning hours when I’m getting ready to come to the zoo, it’s still dark out, so they’re still flying. I just kind of keep tabs on who is a good weight, who is flying really well and then we test fly them to make they have enough altitude.”

While the winged mammals are gaining altitude as they heal, they also tend to gain some attitude. The three bats released Aug. 4 were quite vocal about their readiness to be freed. They squeaked impatiently as Stronsick reached into their pyramid-shaped hut to extract them one by one.

I felt privileged to witness Reagle’s return to the wild. He took off into the fading twilight and beautiful landscape of the Trexler Preserve, which surrounds the Lehigh Valley Zoo in North Whitehall Township, Lehigh County.

Stronsick will be back again soon. There is a constant supply of rehabilitated bats. She’s taken in more than 30 pups this season and they are soon going to be old enough to release. Two other recent rescues were victims of glue traps. Other bats are recuperating from cat attacks.

“We just did our consensus report from the beginning of the year and we rescued a little over 90 bats,” Stronsick said Aug. 4, 2016. “Last year we rescued about 80 for the entire year, so it’s significantly more.”

More rescues have not deterred her from wanting to expand. Her next project is construction of outdoor flight cages. If you would like to make a monetary contribution, click here. The rescue also has a wish list on Amazon.

Stronsick is still working on getting 501(c)3 nonprofit status for the rescue.